Reviews

In the south-east of Tasmania a new forty-six-kilometre hiking trail charts spectacular sea cliffs and dramatic gullies. The trail is one of the largest nature tourism projects in Australian history and its design will no doubt inform others in development.

Cassandra Chilton of Rush Wright Associates reviews the 2017 NGV Architecture Commission by
Retallack Thompson and Other Architects and finds, among other things, the “best place in Melbourne this summer for a warm afternoon snooze.”

As development pressures intensify in Australian cities, the renovation of the Riverside Centre plaza illustrates how an urban space can be revitalized without the need to sacrifice heritage or cultural identity.

Anyone who has travelled through regional Australia would understand the importance many towns place on their welcome signs – not just to communicate useful information, but also to establish and project an identity of place.

Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten from the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) recently spoke to an audience of more than 700 people at the Melbourne School of Design about their new research direction – the countryside.

The 202020 Vision is an initiative to create “20 percent more green space in Australia’s urban areas by the year 2020.” But the ambitions of the vision, and its claims to success, deserve some serious scrutiny.

Rhys Williams reviews the 2017 Landscape Australia Conference, unpacking a subtext that pervaded the day which spoke to the realities of practising in a world where scientific fact, moral standards and due process seemingly carry little weight.

Opened in 2005, the Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project “daylighted” a neglected watercourse in the centre of Seoul that was previously covered over by an elevated highway, and prior to that, was basically an open sewer.

Charles Anderson reviews Unspoken Spaces: Studio Olafur Eliasson, a richly illustrated journey through the extraordinary range of works realized by artist Olafur Eliasson and his studio since the late 1990s.